The monopoly of public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) using twisted-pair copper wiring and circuit protocols was challenged by systems that utilized Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and voice over an Internet Protocol (VoIP), as illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 6,141,341 to Jones. Numerous systems utilizing and extending the streaming capabilities offered by VoIP continued to develop, but were not initially concerned with RF modulation. Transmitting and receiving radio communications were subsequently facilitated by the radio over internet protocol (RoIP), which functions similar to VoIP, but utilizes an added command layer. An example is shown by the linking of two radios over the Ethernet in U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2006/0067266 by Ehlers.
RoIP technology converts the radio signal to baseband (i.e., demodulates the signal), then digitizes the baseband information and sends it over IP, and lastly re-modulates the baseband information for transmission at the receiving end. To accomplish demodulation (i.e., extraction of the modulation information), and also subsequent re-modulation, requires fore-knowledge of the modulation type to be converted, and the requisite ability to demodulate and re-modulate the signal. Thus, current RoIP technology cannot provide a generic (modulation transcendent or modulation agnostic) transmission of the signal over an internet connection.
Moreover, the ability to transmit captured data files over IP (e.g., emailing a captured sample file) serves to transmit complex (digital) modulation generically, but does not accomplish transmission in real-time. There is no streaming of data samples, and no attempt to simulate an active RF link between the two devices.
The present invention is conceived and adapted to provide the capability to generically transport either conventional (e.g. AM, FM, phase, or pulse) modulation or complex modulation (e.g., Gaussian Minimum Shifting Key (GMSK), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and etc.) in real time across an internet protocol link, such as Gigabit Ethernet (GBE), without the need to know anything about that modulation other than its required occupied bandwidth.